U.S. AND THE NICARAGUAN REBELS: SIX YEARS OF QUESTIONS AND CONTRADICTIONS

By STEPHEN ENGELBERG, Special to the New York Times

Published: May 3, 1987

WASHINGTON, May 2—
The Reagan Administration's support for the Nicaraguan rebels has been marked by contradictions - and the potential for misleading Congress - ever since President Reagan approved support for the rebel forces nearly six years ago, according to present and former Administration officials.

Early in the assistance program, a small cadre of committed officials at the Pentagon, the White House, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency - called the ''core group'' - stretched the rules to get support for the rebel cause, a cause that has come to most engage Mr. Reagan's personal interest.

In later years, the core group became known as the Restricted Interagency Group.

The officials said participants in the group came up with the idea for organizing a succession of temporary exercises in Honduras, so that the American military and intelligence infrastructure would be enlarged at a time when Congress adamantly opposed a permanent presence in that country.

''It was amazing,'' marveled one former military official. ''They did something in Honduras that was opposed by most of the bureaucracy and nearly all of the Congress.''

Gen. Paul F. Gorman of the Pentagon, Duane Clarridge of the Central Intelligence Agency and Thomas O. Enders of the State Department were the major players, with Lieut. Col. Oliver L. North, the National Security Council aide, mostly watching as these officials ''played the system,'' the former official said.

The core group, said one former official close to its work, was expert in using personal ties to military and intelligence officers to funnel assistance to the rebel forces, known as contras, and, in some cases, to circumvent the spirit of Congressional restrictions. Avoiding the Rules: A Plan for Planes One example, according to documents on file at a Washington-based organization called the National Security Archives, was Operaton Elephant Herd. This was a 1983 plan to declare several planes used by the military as excess so they could be donated to the contras. This effectively avoided a $24 million cap then in place on aiding the rebels.

Members of Congress and others who have spent the last four months investigating the Iran-contra affair for hearings that open Tuesday say they are now convinced that the climate of those early years, when Congress had approved C.I.A. support for the rebels, set the tone for the effort to circumvent a Congressional ban on military aid imposed in 1984.

''I knew they would press to the edge of the law to aid the contras,'' said Representative Lee H. Hamiliton, the Indiana Democrat who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. ''In some cases, subsequent facts suggest they may have gone over the edge, but that's for others to decide.''

With Congress passing two ambiguously worded amendments aimed at cutting off military aid in 1984 and 1985, the stage was set for some at the National Security Council to begin coordinating a private effort to get food, weapons and other aid to the rebels.

One of the major questions as the hearings loom is how much senior officials, including President Reagan, knew about these possibly illegal activities.

An investigator said that a note from Vice President Bush was found in Colonel North's files offering warm thanks for ''all the work'' Colonel North had been doing for the contras.

It was not clear what work the note referred to, but it was dated November 1985, three months after the first public questions had been raised about the legality of Colonel North's activities in news reports. The Vice President's office declined to comment, although Mr. Bush has said previously he was not aware of any improper activities by Colonel North.

Two former senior Administration officials deeply involved in Nicaragua policy said the potential for misleading Congress was inherent from the moment President Reagan was briefed on the goals of the program.

One former senior official recalled that at first ''it took some persuading'' to get the President interested in the contra program in 1981.

When the idea was presented, according to the official, who attended the White House meetings, Mr. Reagan was told the plan was for a small force that would intercept arms shipments from the Sandinistas to the Marxist insurgents in El Salvador. A New Goal: Lesson for Russians Mr. Reagan was not enthusiastic, the official recalled, so his advisers changed the concept. The argument that finally convinced the President was that the contras could be the United States answer to a series of Soviet-supported third-world insurgencies that had seized power in the 1970's, including those in South Yemen and Mozambique.

''We said: 'The United States should not accept the notion that the game was over when the Soviet-backed governments took over,' '' the official said.

Mr. Reagan approved the program, even though, as the official recalled, virtually no one in Government believed the rebels had any chance of winning a military victory. The conflict between statements made to Congress and the realities of field operations arose almost immediately.